


Little Talks

by winterysomnium



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterysomnium/pseuds/winterysomnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No, Dick. I’m not letting you anywhere near her. You’re a popcorn machine killer.”<br/>Tim’s arms spread out like butter and even if his body doesn’t hide the wall, it still cuts a starry shape into it and Dick can’t slip through the angles Tim’s limbs form; can’t even get to the button without Tim’s fingers blocking the attempt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Talks

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday gift for the wonderful kaciart. Her art has been an inspiration and mood lifter since forever to me and she’s an incredibly nice, talented, amazing person and she deserve the best of presents. I hope you’ll like this even if it’s as weird as it is.  
>  P.S.: I’m not sure how old Dick was when he started with the Teen Titans and I couldn’t find it so please, if there’s something incorrect in that one sentence, just ignore it.;__; I fail.  
>  P.P.S: There’s one line I’ve thought was a saying in English, but apparently it’s not, so it’s inspired by a lyric by Panic!At the Disco. Also, the title is the name of a song by Of Monsters and Men.

“No, Dick. I’m not letting you _anywhere_ near her. You’re a popcorn machine killer.”

Tim’s arms spread out like butter and even if his body doesn’t hide the wall, it still cuts a starry shape into it and Dick can’t slip through the angles Tim’s limbs form; can’t even get to the button without Tim’s fingers blocking the attempt.

And how _ridiculous_ is that accusation, really?

“I have _no_ popcorn machines on my conscience!” 

“The video logs from Titans’ Tower show something different. You _drowned_ that poor device.”

“Geez, Timbo. I was _fourteen_. And Vic repaired it on the same day. It was as good as new.”

“Yes, _as good as_. Nope, mine is staying surgery free. And that means _you’re_ not allowed to touch her.”

“But what’s a movie without popcorn!” Dick whines and the TV screen behind him keeps replaying the menu; the pictures and scenes flick between her hips, seem to reach farther than they should with the way their lights soak the floor.

Tim sighs, and he feels like he’s repeating the menu too, copying the words he’s told Dick two minutes ago, pasting them back into his mouth. “I’m not saying that there will be no popcorn. I’m just saying you’re not preparing it. Why can’t you just get the soda?”

“Because!” Dick paces, three steps to one side and one back, like he’s arranging the ground he’s going to stand on, a structure his argument can adapt to. “I’ve seen your fridge a _million_ times, but your nest not even _once_! It even took you almost two months to show me your civilian apartment!” Dick’s arms leave his chest and he’s revealing half the emotions with them, the whirling confusion and slowly felt hurt, the disappointing rejection Tim’s _no’s_ have been.

“And to be honest; I have _no idea_ why!”

Tim’s arms tuck underneath his ribcage, a latch bodily concealing every slip of reactions he doesn’t want to acknowledge, doesn’t want Dick to grasp.

“Because you’re just going to mess it up! I’ve asked you countless times not to wear shoes here, or at least to clean them up before you leave the hall. And what did I find last week? Paths of dirt that stretched from the front door, lead through the living room, continued across the kitchen until they’ve stopped _right_ before my bed.”

“I’ve apologized for that! I even cleaned it up the next day!”

“Or what about the clothes that buried half of the couch on Tuesday?”

“My washing machine was broken!”

“Oh, so there’s another machine that’s _not_ on your conscience?” Tim quips, a tired malice yawning through his words and Dick snaps, a twig broken under the soles of Tim’s feet.

“And since _when_ are _you_ so obsessed with tidiness? Your bedroom at your parents’ house was in a state of rising entropy your whole life!”

Tim’s face colors; turns red down to his neck, his eyes checking if the lock on his chest holds; if he still breathes the way he should. If his heart isn’t stuttering in visible impacts, impacts it leaves under his skin. “Well maybe I’ve _changed_!” He says, after a clipped quiet, after the pause no one wished for. “It happens to some people.”

And everything sinks to Dick’s stomach. The thoughts he struggles to order, the sounds filtered to a dizzy hum; the air in his lungs and the beat in his arteries, even the elastic possibilities of his bones, _everything_ he didn’t want to digest. Everything he wanted to keep. Wanted to _explore_ first.

No. Tim has drained them because it’s about _that_ again. It’s about that fuck up he was; about the betrayal that didn’t mean to betray and.

He’s getting sick. Getting sick of having this for lunch and for dinner; sick of the leftovers he sees in Tim’s eyes.

Sick of the stones they’ve become in his liver and kidneys; of the murmur it leaves on the bottom of his lungs.

Sick of saying sorry.

“It’s about me “firing” you again, isn’t it?”

The confirmation for Dick lies in Tim’s twitch, in the shift from closed to closed _off_ , an isolation even Tim can’t seem to overcome. Can’t seem to build a bridge over.

“It’s not,” the boy denies. _Denies_ , but he denies things daily. Denies and Dick won’t believe him this time. 

“I’ve already explained it _and_ apologized for it a thousand times. And every one of those apologies was _sincere_.” 

Tim’s not happy with anything in that. Is not because he knows what it _means_ , why the topic didn’t change and his frustration clacks against his teeth; creates a sound he‘s not proud of. “And _I’ve_ told you _just_ as many times that even though I understand your reasoning, it still _hurt_!”

The boy’s shoulders tighten; tuck closer to his neck and he walks past Dick, several feet from his reach; so quick that for a second, Dick can’t fathom what Tim's doing. 

It hits him when Tim goes for his jacket and – he’s _running away_. 

( _Can’t get the fight out of the kid; get the kid out of the fight, huh?_ )

Tim grabs his jacket, freshly cleaned and drying on the hanger that was secured around the doorknob of his bedroom door and as he bends the jacket over his forearm, he says, mouth half facing Dick’s stricken expression:

“And I’ve already told you it’s not that. I’m not the unforgiving _jerk_ you obviously take me for. If something about me stayed the same, it’s that I don’t hold grudges.” 

Tim fishes his keys out of his other coat and slips on his shoes, doesn’t even look back, doesn’t bother to wait for any answer Dick might find.

And Dick’s glad. Glad because as the door waves back into its full moon, as it clucks his tongue goodbye, and as the security hums to alertness as soon as the wood touches the painted bricks; Dick’s afraid he wouldn’t have anything to add anyway.

\---

There’s a tree in Robinson Park. 

It grew with Tim. Grew with his hands as wiry and droopy as the green twines of it; the baby petals curling with his uncut hair, lining the tree’s reach like the strands that lined Tim’s ears; it got thicker and high, thick as Tim’s dedication and high as the spots he searched it from; and he learned to climb it.

He learned to put weight into his joints and not to overstrain his muscles; learned to be the quiet the plants talk to.

It taught him to access roofs, to escape the fright of dead ends and be the backdrop, the daily scenery you can’t help but overlook. It got him to understand the silent hush of his own home. 

And he almost forgot it. Forgot it when the park became Ivy’s and forgot it when there wasn’t anyone to remember _him_ , no one to remind him of its stubbly branches.

He needs to see it.

Needs to talk to its quiet and he thinks that maybe; maybe then he won’t be as vulnerable.

As conscious of the meaning behind the colour of his floors; what wood he used for the doors and why it’s different from the kitchen cabinets; why is his sink round when the square ones are wider and more convenient; why the paintings and no photographs?

Dick hasn’t asked yet. Hasn’t questioned anything about his apartment. Hasn’t said a _damn_ thing.

(Aside from “ _Nice_.” when he abandoned Tim’s mouth to find the nearest surface he could lift Tim on, could make sure Tim wasn’t going to fall out of his arms. He was gone in the morning; his substitute a note with a minty chocolate on it and not a word about the _place_ , just words about his person and.)

It could have been a hint.

Or a _coincidence_ but Tim is sure, _convinced_ beyond taking the chance that once Dick sees the home he hides behind his house: that he’ll get it.

He’ll see through Tim’s facades and realize how shallow Tim is. How he’s so shallow he doesn’t even know why his curtains are blue and why the sinks are round. Doesn’t care for the meaning behind the framed paint because there wasn’t time and – he isn’t sure he knows anymore. Knows what he likes because wasn’t he supposed to grow up? Wasn’t he supposed to add to his tastes and have his own trends to like, his own bookshelf that he could claim as his favorite? If some words aren’t right for his vocabulary anymore, are still his books his? Is his music still adequate and how does he test it?

So now, he has three. Three bookshelves filled with unread books, books that don’t even collect dust because he’s so obsessed with cleaning now. Now that he doesn’t know what his mess would consist of.

And Dick would realize.

How consumed he really is. How much the cowl became his face; how the white is the color of his eyes and the black leather stopped imitating his skin, how the red and dark and gold are almost birth marks; how it changed from being mimicry to being the person he knows the most about.

The person who _reads_ the books in his secret bookshelves; the person that prefers discs to shurikens now; the person who has a bike that he’s confident about. A bike he can defend and can tell he genuinely _likes_. And.

Dick can’t know. 

Can’t find out that the person he dates, the person he _spends time with_ – is just a name for an identity. 

That the domino is Tim. 

That Drake is the costume.

No. He _can’t_.

\--- 

The phone tugs at his sleeve, tugs with the faint melody and Tim thumbs the call, after it nearly dies out for the third time.

_“Where are you?”_ Comes the resonance of Dick’s concern, not any weaker even when it’s sifted through the windy streets of Gotham, through the faults of Tim’s ears. 

“In a tree.”

_“How old is that tree?”_

Tim hesitates. It’s this joke. This secret sentence, established a costume ago in Blüdhaven; fun poked at Dick’s flirting, at his urges to appreciate the world and now, now it’s a constant, a phrase used as _hello_. As _sorry_. As _we fucked up, Timbo_. 

“Younger than you,” he says, and the tree can probably listen. With Tim’s chin on the peaks of his knees, with his sneakers flat on the crook of one of the crown’s foundations, it can probably hear.

Important is, that Dick hears it too.

_“Too young?”_

“Aged to my age.” 

And Dick smiles; Tim knows. Just as Dick knows that Tim’s toying with his shoelace, slipping his fingers underneath the strings and loosening it, tightening it on the opposite side and evening it out, tugging at the loose loops.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” they say; Tim a third of an exhale later but it still counts, counts as “simultaneously” and they both stop the laugh that bubbles up, the laugh that surfaces to Tim’s vicinity whenever Dick’s in it too.

(The laugh might be Dick’s. Dick might be _it_.)

The mood lifts, still a bit low but not in the underground anymore; not somewhere the subway could smother it and they both breathe easier. Both struggle not to miss the high. 

_“I’ll come pick you up?”_

“I’m in Robinson Park.” 

_“On it. Stall that tree lady for me.”_

“She’s too classy for you,” Tim answers and they disconnect, Dick’s fond chuckle seated safely under Tim’s ribs.

\---

Tim spots him first, the paleness of his jacket in contrast with the fuller tones of his hair and skin, with the icy flush the cold printed on the sides of his face, on the tips of his fingers.

(His gloves are tucked into his pockets and the keys are probably tangled up with them already; and they’ve lived so close to each other’s habits they became contagious, spreading the patterns one quirk at a time and Tim learned to hide things in pockets too. He’s just more careful about the company he picks for his stuff.) 

“Tim?” Dick asks to the rustle and shake of a treetop, Tim’s feet slipping down to dangle between the uncrowded space, bordered by leaves and the ground; not low but not terribly high either and as Dick approaches, Tim answers: 

“Still up here.”

Dick’s fingers unhook from his jeans’ belt loops and he captures Tim’s feet, holds the uncovered strips of Tim’s socks just above the rim of his shoes.

Even the added layer of insulation did nothing to preserve the warmth and Dick’s hands feel warm, rings of coal attached to his legs and Tim lets it flow through his blood; lets it warm the places it shouldn’t affect any other time.

“We’re not fighting anymore, are we?” Dick asks and steps into the trajectory of Tim’s knees, Tim’s ankles an inch above his shoulders and he rests his head on the side of Tim’s shin, sighs into the cold air.

“We’re not,” Tim responds, and adds; the thought not quite worded right: “I’m sorry.” 

(For being childish. For being insecure. Being _hurtful_.)

Dick bumps his head against Tim’s leg and says: “Me too. Let’s not talk about it here?”

Tim nods but knows he won’t be able to explain anywhere. Won’t be able to express the fears that drive his actions, his vague rejections and Dick – probably won’t talk either. Not until they’re a few days from now, in bed or watching that movie they’ve missed today, until the details start to leak and won’t be important anymore. Until they can focus on the _core_ of the fight. 

Until then, they’ll ignore the subtle queries. Will deflect them. 

“Yeah. Could you let go? I’ll jump down.” 

Dick releases him and takes a step back, but as soon as Tim lands he hoists him up again; arms a cradle holding Tim’s weight, the small of his back the center of it, and he kisses his cheek, nuzzles his windswept neck.

Tim yelps but can stabilize himself, can predict where to grasp; his body able adapt to Dick’s in any grounded position by now (and in heaps of the ungrounded one’s too; they’re this familiar. They have _this_ kind of history to show off.) 

“We need to design a new gadget,” Tim murmurs near Dick’s exposed ear and Dick smiles against the collar of his jacket.

“What kind?” 

“The kind that seals our mouths shut as soon as we start being stupid.”

Dick laughs and lowers Tim back on his feet, tips to heels and it’s smooth again.

The interaction between them is theirs again; so recognizable Tim swears he can feel the itch of his first domino; the itch of a time where he still had something underneath it, had something worth to hide.

Dick says: “Agreed.”; says it right into the bundle of Tim’s thoughts and Tim realizes he _has_ a preference, even if it’s only this tiny, years old one. Even if it’s one that’s shared, shared with the boy he is when he’s dressed to fight and. 

They might have things in common. Red Robin and Tim. 

For instance: they both like to kiss Dick’s mouth when it’s cold outside.

If only for the hands that curl around their ears and warm them up.


End file.
